Jack’s dramatic entrance to the office of the Dublin Poetry Collective went unnoticed. Expecting to meet the downbeat atmosphere of his fellow poets for whom he was bringing home the bacon, he found an air of frenzied industry as said poets, led by Rosa, buzzed around like worker bees or happy coffee pickers in a Nicaraguan plantation. Light-headed Jack looked for a place to rest the box of bulletins. He’d have arms as long as Dan Donnelly, the famous Kildare pugilist, if he didn’t relieve himself of this box of poetry. Rosa approached, duster in hand, and waved it at the lower shelf where all the back issues of the bulletin dwelled. This was no back issue. A defiant Jack plonked the box on the central table that had just been cleared for their meeting and moved towards the window to survey the street. The scaffolder remained in position, despite the pumping clouds. He should go back down and insist on him coming into the shelter of the hallway. After all this building was once a hotel. In many ways it still was.

He turned in distraction as Rosa swiped the box off the table and replaced it with a colourful throw.
- He'll be here any minute.
Jack mused on the kind of visitor whose arrival could penetrate their hermetically sealed existence and so easily supersede the arrival of The Monthly Poetry Bulletin. Rosa caught his eye and brightened.
- He has an announcement.
If it wasn’t the printer who owned their bad debts, could it be The Dole arriving with an offer of Amnesty for all poets earning a few bob on the side from flogging their wares; that woman from Jobquest offering to put them on a start-your-own-business scheme; or the landlord finally wise to the unofficial uses his trusted caretaker had been putting his treasured building? His landlord, the owner of multiple Georgian buildings throughhout the city, knew Jack as an aspirant poet, but nothing of the brace of poets for whom he was running a glorified day shelter.
- Can't you do something useful?
Rosa stared at him ashen-faced. Jack was aware his stock was low with his fellow poets given the failure of recent money-making initiatives, but why was Rosa losing patience with him too. After all, he was making amends. He was up to his neck in amends. - Who?
- Who what?
Rosa was now winding up the hoover.
- Rosa, I don’t know who or what ...
They were already sounding like an old husband and wife. Arlene, the Poetry Collective’s book-keeper of sorts, already up to high-do, cowered in the corner. Rosa had been working her to the bone and she looked dizzy, even more confounded than Jack by the rate of activity.

Jack was distracted by the rattle of delph sound of hollow footsteps descending from the top floor and the arrival into the room of fellow poet S.K.Dee carrying a tray of cups and assorted biscuits from Rosa and Jack’s kitchen. Skiddy, as he was known to his fellow poets for his poor hygiene and reptilian ways, making tea? Must be something in it for him.
- Who?
He demanded in a far too plaintive voice.
- Jenkins, gobshite!
Skiddy’s retort pushed Jack further to the edge of events.

Skiddy liked to use this earthy rural patois with Jack to highlight the mild but rootless middle-class accent with which Jack spoke, though Jack knew that the tree-lined avenues around Taylor’s Hill in Galway City where Skiddy had been brought up were far from muck and meal. What’s more, the self-styled Steven Kieran Dee was the persistent subject of his mother's over-weaning ways, evidenced by the fact that a consignment of clean clothes and probably cash arrived weekly c/o The Dublin Poetry Collective. Furthermore, Jack suspected him as the anonymous author of a satirical piece about their benevolent landlord in the latest issue of Bizniz magazine.
- Who in Jaysus’ name is Jenkins?
Jack demanded in an absent-minded way, still observing the painstaking almost imperceptible progress of the scaffolder towards the top of the Square. Rosa raised an eye-brow at the aggressive tone in his voice as she passed. It didn't become him.

Skiddy re-entered, burning himself off the tea-pot which he carried awkwardly, the door held open by Arlene. Skiddy smiled seductively at Arlene. Arlene blushed then cowered at Jack’s accusing eyes for she knew that the meeting to come was to deal with the financial crisis for which she as Accounts Clerk to the Poetry Collective had failed to predict. Jack quietely rued the day they had been prevailed upon by Jobquest to take on Arlene to do their accounts in return for some measly employment grant. Aside from only later realising her tendency to burst into tears at the mildest of harsh words she was also not an Accounts Clerk of any sort. Thank you Jobquest, very much. Jack eased his tone. After all Arlene was as much a victim of Jobquest and their sly live register manipulation ways as they. It was either the collective or the disability register for Arlene.
- Who Arlene?
She stared at him in disbelief. How could Jack be so unenlightened?
- Professor Jenkins, Jack.
Skiddy laughed lustily at Jack’s growing impatience. Arlene blushed as the tremor of his laugh passed through her body. Rosa, aware of Jack’s exasperation with Arlene and aware too that the woman had forgotten to take her medication that day intervened.
- Do you mind not standing there? Jenkins will be here any minute.
It was only then that Jack recognised the name of Rosa’s former English professor. He was both relieved and suspicious given the same characters penchant for the company of his female students.
What does he want?

Rosa just shook her head. She was in a bad mood with him. He decided not to persist, not least because a heavy and authoritive double-knock now reverberated through the hollow building and they all stopped as if in a game of musical chairs. Skiddy slid into the seast beside the heater, warmly observing the tension between Jack and Rosa as Arlene sprung into hostess mode. Jack couldn't think what he had done to annoy Rosa, a person who didn't even let her period get to her. Perhaps she had heard those lone horses bridling at the bit as he sped up O’Connell Street.

Like a hysterical and precocious child Professor Paddy Jenkins glided into the room, hands firmly planted in the deep pockets of his fashionable woollen overcoat and hand-knit scarf thrown over one shoulder de-noting perennial student image. He spread his coat like wings in the sacred space that Rosa's cleaning operation had opened up. Turning to look upon their expectant faces he suddenly grew solemn. He had their attention and savoured it while eyeing each of them.

Poets, friends and former alumnae, this is a sad day for poetry.
As far as Jack was concerned, it couldn’t get much sadder.
- The time to mourn has arrived. Poets the world over, the people of Ireland, of County Kilkenny and the tiny rural parish of Coon are tonight mourning the passing of one of our true giants.
Jack knew immediately to whom he referred. Word of illness had reached them from London, death so imminent he had considered stalling publication of the monthly Bulletin.
Meaney!
The name fell from his lips and all turned to look at Jack. Some of them were clearly in the dark. Jack had been reared in the north Kilkenny district where Martin Meaney had first risen to prominence as a mere teenager . Jenkins looked at him gratefully as if Jack had spared him from a true burden. He appeared to emit an involuntary whimper.
Is dead.
Another might construe his gesture as a giggle of delight. He quickly suppressed this emotion, dropping his head into a prayerful silence as the poets, some of whom clearly did not recognise the dead poet’s name, exchanged looks that varied from Jack’s growing assessment of the historical significance, Skiddy’s indifference, Rosa’s quisitiveness and big wet tears from Arlene who was already blessing herself and sighing a prayer.

My friends, we must do something. Poetry must act and be seen to act in recognition of this towerung figure of our times.
Jack thought of the scaffolder who he had left lying on the pavement. Meaney could not be saved but this poor character could. He should have acted then. He wondered what Jenkins had in mind.
As I address you a memorial medal is being minted in the Kilkenny foundry where Martin Meaney served his apprenticeship.
Had Paddy Jenkins come all this way into unfamiliar territory to tell them this.
This medal will be presented a week from now at a memorial service to the author of a commemorative poem whose work will be included in a festrup which I have recently commissioned in the poets honour from a number of notable fellow poets and commentators.
Jenkins surveyed the faces of the poets for signs of enthusiasm. They appeared disinterested, indeed confounded.
- There will of course be a financial consideration.
- How much?
Skiddy was first to stake his claim. Jenkins smiled a cold smile at this demonstration of poet hunger.
- One thousand pounds.
He proudly declared. Jack, seeing Skiddy's hunger bared realised things were moving too fast. He watched the eyes of the down-trodden poets sizing each other up. Jack was dubious about the proposal, not least because Meaney was not yet cold in his grave. Jack cleared his throat, an indication that the meeting should be called to order.
- Welcome, Professor Jenkins. The meeting joins with you in solidarity at the news of the death of a great poet and revolutionary. The meeting would at this early stage like to indicate to the Professor that The Dublin Poetry Collective has a policy on prizes.
The combined gathering set their anxious eyes on Jack.
- In principal we are against them, as competition among members is contrary to our collective purpose and merely breeds dissent.
- Even if it is good for poetry.
Jenkins retorted to nods from a far too numerous band of poets for Jack to win a vote. Skiddy nodded in agreement while awaiting elucidation. None came. Jack was in like a shot.
- I refer to Section 5 Sub-section 2a of our constitution, which states that the proceeds of all prizes and bursaries secured by committee members shall be allocated to the collective aims of the organisation.
Jenkins seemed surprised but not affronted.
- Of course! You're a collective.
Jenkins appeared to be preparing to leave or change the subject. Skiddy seemed deflated. Jack should have left it at that, but struck out for the high moral ground, feeling the seering winds of the Castlecomer Plateau in lungs and Meaney standing by his side
- Anyway poetry is not about winners and losers.
- Bullshit!
Skiddy intervened.
- Talent must out.
Jack was unmoved
- You're aware that Meaney was a communist, Professor Jenkins?
- Here we go.
Skiddy scoffed, ignored by Jack.
- …and did not believe in setting poet against poet.
Skiddy was now glaring at him as if Jack had denied him his birthright.
- Either we're a collective or we are not.
Jack's voice hit falsetto, the pressure of recent exertions finally finding voice.
Afraid you won't win, comrade. Huh?
Jack didn’t know how to respond to this. Skiddy always liked to lower the tone and chose to ignore the comment. He noticed the others, including Rosa, looking away. Skiddy railed.
- I propose we scrap that little communistic sub-clause and let the best man win.
Skiddy scanned the other poets and received some approving nods.
- I second that!
Arlene burst in out of nowhere, startling even Skiddy.
Jack looked at the other poets and then at Rosa, only then remembering her probationary status precluded her participation as she was after all not a poet. Anyway, she had no time for his communism and they had long agreed to stop converting each other to their respective beliefs.
- Or woman.
Kate Keane stood in the doorway. The whole room – Jenkins slower than the others – turned to look at the source of this crucial intervention. Kate Keane strode to the table like a woman just returned from a brisk walk in the country, watched by a suspicious Professor Jenkins. If they already knew each other Kate did her best to pretend otherwise.
- Martin Meaney is not even buried and ye’re preparing to
plunder his legacy.
More than that Kate Keane didn't elaborate, but there was conviction even resentment in the way she expressed herself. As the others were not to be drawn into taking sides, it was stalemate. A bruised and confused Paddy Jenkins grew silent, and took to scrutinising Kate Keane, who ignored him. Always in search of compromise, Jack proposed the adjournment of the matter to a “Sub-Committee on Policy, Procedures and Prizes”.
Suit yourself!
Was all that could be heard from Skiddy as he slammed the door behind him. Jenkins took this as his cue to make his excuses and leave. An air of deflation now suffused the room. Jack felt the mantle of blame descend on him and fell to listening as Arlene outlined the sales figures for the last issue of the Monthly Poetry Bulletin. There was method in Jack's laying down of matters constitutional. One thousand pounds - the prize on offer - was precisely the amount owed by the Collective to their former printer who had now followed through on a threat to sell their debt to a loan-shark. Jack wanted to argue that if they stuck together, they could collectively write The Poetry Collective out of debt by one or other of them seizing this Meaney Money.

By the time they adjourned, the torrential rain had ceased. The Square was now in silence and the scaffolder, sympathy for whom had outweighed those of the recently deceased Martin Meaney, had departed or had been swept away into the city drains by the torrent.
Why had the man been so insistent to tell him of his profession? It was more than a brush off. Why had he chosen Jack among all the passersby?



back to home page